Area schools show improvement in 2022-2023 school report card

The Kentucky Department of Education released its 2022-2023 school report card data last week, which gauges each school district and individual school within the state based on several criteria, such as test scores and student readiness. Based on this year’s data, area schools look to be performing well.

The results were accompanied with a press release from KDE, in which Kentucky Interim Education Commissioner Robin Fields Kinney said that there had been obvious improvement statewide, especially at the elementary school level, though she added that there “is still a lot of work left to be done.”

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic now being largely behind us, Kinney also noted that “we must not underestimate” its impact on students and how it changed the way they received instruction during the height of its spread.

“This will be a multi-year recovery period that requires all of us to think differently about how we are educating our students,” said Kinney in the release. “KDE and our local districts and schools have been proactive in getting students back on track.”

And while this year’s data may not have been too stellar at the state level, locally, school districts are thriving.

Under the current ratings system, schools receive a color-coded rating with blue being the highest rating followed by green, yellow, orange and red, which is the lowest rating. The state moved away from the traditional star-rating system last year, opting for the new color system.

Based on this year’s data, almost every school within the county saw improvements over the previous year.

In 2021-2023’s rankings, only one school in the Whitley County School District received a blue rating, which was Whitley East Elementary School. This year, Whitley Central Primary School, Whitley Central Intermediate School and Whitley North Elementary School all join that list, with the latter improving from a yellow rating last year.

Boston and Pleasant View elementary schools, Whitley County Middle School and Whitley County High School all received green ratings, all up from yellow ratings last year.

Williamsburg Independent Schools showed positive growth also, with the elementary school receiving the highest of the three grade levels, moving from yellow last year to blue this year. The high school saw some improvement as well, receiving a green rating.

Only one school in the Corbin Independent School District fell below a blue rating this year, with Corbin Primary School receiving a green rating, the same as last year.

Corbin High School moved from green last year to blue this year.

All the schools within the county that received a score and their rating are as follows:

Whitley County

Boston Elementary School – Green

Oak Grove Elementary School – Green

Pleasant View Elementary School – Green

Whitley East Elementary School – Blue

Whitley North Elementary School – Blue

Whitley Central Primary School – Blue

Whitley Central Intermediate School – Blue

Whitley County Middle School – Green

Whitley County High School – Green

Williamsburg

Williamsburg Elementary School – Blue

Williamsburg Middle School – Yellow

Williamsburg High School – Green

Corbin

Corbin Primary School – Green

Corbin Elementary School – Blue

Corbin Middle School – Blue

Corbin High School – Blue